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Saturday night and all's quiet.

Solidarity Day Tuesday

by Ric Erickson

Paris:– Monday, 30. April:– One set of farmers cheered last night's storm because it dropped a bit of welcome rain on thirsty plants. Another set of farmers worried about the massive clots of hail that battered their innocent thirsty plants back into the ground. Around here there was lots of lightning, thunder, and the heavens poured like drunken watering can for several hours. Is our premature summer over?

April Sets Record Never Before Set

Regardless of what Météo Jim writes below, the predicted NO WEATHER that I expected for tomorrow, the day of combat for workers, soldiers and sailors, 1. May, has been superseded by a forecast on tonight's TV–news that calls for near–perfect skies to present a clement dome over the parades that will be taking place in eastern Paris on Tuesday.

For the past two days the outlook was dodgy. However the latest dope from the météo boffins led the TV folks to believe that it will be mostly sunny tomorrow, with a comfortable high of 24 degrees. South of the Seine there might be some weak clouds, unless you go a long way south where there will likely be serious clouds.

Bright lights, even in the 14th.

The story has to do with some sort of low in Spain. Tomorrow this affects the southwest, on Wednesday the centre, and ditto for Thursday. Up here it will be mostly sunny, except maybe for a few clouds over Montparnasse. But the temperature will fall to 22 on Wednesday and a dip to 20 was foreseen for Thursday.

Since this is the last day of the month the weather Joes came out on a limb to state that this April has been 4 degrees warmer than any other April in recorded history. If this sounds reasonable to you, it is the average for all France. Here in the frozen north the temperatures that were recorded were 7 degrees higher than normal for any April on record. This will affect the Soldes d'Eté. We bought it all, setting another record.

Over there on the east coast way west of here, the situation is unsettled and confused. Send good wishes, pass the umbrellas, put out life rafts, because here's Météo Jim with another depressing forecast, like the ones we used to have before we set records.

Weather for Yo–Yos

Last Monday the high was 35 degrees a–grad, windy, with swirling snow showers. One week later, the temperature set new record highs along the East Coast with La Grosse Pomme reaching 85 degrees.

This leafy alley is home to the Musée de Montparnasse.

Vegetation that had barely thought about blooming suddenly exploded in torrents of white, green and pollen. Even the Groundhog was at a loss for this bipolar weather. In addition, his email box was flooding out his burrow with hundreds and hundreds of messages from Metropole's readers asking him to explain the vagaries of the weather. Unfortunately, he misread the messages and thought he was talking about the other pole, the one in the south.

The final Thursday night into the final Friday of April saw a mini–repeat of the storm from two weeks ago. Minor flooding occurred again, but it was nowhere near the level of the Ides of April.

By the time Metropole's readers see this, it will be May. Not only May, but May 1, Labour Day – not to be confused with Labor Day in Pommeland – and everyone will be on strike. As a result, there will not be any weather for that day. Not weather reports, absolutely NO WEATHER.

As for Pommeland where it is not a strike day, there will be weather and Metropole's readers are invited to come to Pommeland to experience it. Temperatures will be in the upper 60s to around 70, all in a–grad and with a chance of rain on Tuesday and sun for the rest of the week. The first 50 readers who write will receive a guided tour of Queens.

A la prochaine , Météo Jim

Ed's Note:– Summer is still on over here.

Café Life

Solidarity Day

It is highly appropriate, in this period between elections, to have May Day. After a very intense election campaign when we had 12 candidates and then they got whittled down to 2, and now we have two candidates who are filling up all the TV time and big halls and zipping around the country relentlessly – ah – the time has come for ordinary folks to get out and march in the streets of Paris.

For years I have been mistakenly calling this event a fête. It is, as one crusty old union dude pointed out, supposed to be a day when workers show off their power, parade their force, demonstrate their determination to have control over their lives. It is a day of pride and combat.

A local watering hole.

According to today's Le Parisien there will be 5 parades tomorrow. Four of them will take place in eastern Paris, starting at different times and going in different directions. The hub is the place de la République. All four will start from it, or end at it, or pass through it. Two groups will start at 10:30, going towards République. One group leaves République at 11:00, to go northwest. The CGT and allies plan to start at République at 14:30, and head towards Nation, going along the Boulevard Voltaire.